She Be Damned

by M. J. Tjia

  I stoop to pick Eleanor’s handkerchief from the floor when I remember Dr Mordaunt’s diary. That I must retrieve. It will look very strange indeed if the police find it in my possession, in this room. I look on the bedside table and under the bed and behind the dressing table, but I can’t find it.

  “What are you searching for, Mrs Chancey?” asks Inspector Kelley.

  “A book I was reading.” I’m puzzled. “It does not seem to be here. Do you think one of your men might have moved it?”

  He shakes his head. “No. They would not have moved anything without my express permission.” He glances around the room. “Maybe you left it in the sitting room?”

  I agree, and force a smile to my lips. Maybe Bill had removed it when he was inspecting Eleanor’s body. “Yes. It is nothing. I’m sure it will turn up.”

  The Inspector escorts me to the front door. “Do you have a carriage, Mrs Chancey?”

  “Yes, I do, but my coachman has taken it to the police station to hear word of my maid.”

  “I’ll have someone find a cab for you,” he says, before calling over one of the constables and giving the instruction. He turns back to me, taking a notebook from his pocket. “Mrs Chancey, do we have any way of contacting you if we have further questions?”

  I think quickly. I consider giving him a false address but know it will be easy enough for the police to trace me eventually. I should’ve made up a fake name at the beginning of all this mess. What was one alias compared to another, after all? Cursing myself, I give over my Mayfair address to the Inspector and climb into the waiting cab.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  My study is tucked behind the staircase in my Mayfair home. It was previously used as a lady’s parlour by earlier residents and although I’ve kept the rustic green wallpaper, I replaced the pretty table, chairs and lace coverings with furniture more suited to an office. Against the furthest wall stands my desk next to a large glass-front cabinet, filled with books. My library includes novels, poetry and works of science suggested to me by past lovers and patrons who attend my evening soirees, but I also own tales of romance and murder, and one of my favourite books is the outdated Newgate Calendar. I just love its lurid illustrations.

  The one concession to comfort in the room is a chaise longue by the sash windows and lying upon it, face down, is the book by Wollstonecraft I’ve been reading. It seems like months ago I last picked it up, but actually it’s only been a matter of nine days or so. I open it and read from the page I’ve earmarked: Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison. My eyes roam the rest of the paragraph, resting on words such as insignificant, slavery, sensuality of man. I struggle against seeing myself in these words, but recognise their truth too. But surely there’s more to my life now?

  I close the book and move to the filing cabinet. I know exactly what’s to be found in each of the twenty-four, slender drawers. The bottom drawer to the right holds the deeds to my house in Brighton and a couple of annuities. Two of the top drawers hold my latest receipts for a range of goods, from my evening gowns to horse shoes, while the third top drawer houses bills still to be paid. The drawer third from the bottom contains intimate letters from lovers; letters that I still cherish when I’m feeling sentimental. The other type of intimate letters I’ve received over the years – the ones that I keep as insurance of one kind or another – are safely locked up in the bank.

  I pick at my bottom lip for a moment, staring at the filing cabinet. What can I find here to help free Amah? I pull out the second drawer from the top right side. Within are my receipts for payments to the servants and a small ledger. Although there are amounts made out to the butler, the cook, the housemaids and the groomsmen, I know there will not be any formal receipt made out to Amah. I yank out the fifth and sixth drawers, where I keep my travel documents. I’d visited Paris for a sennight not five weeks ago. Of course Amah had travelled with me and if only I can find evidence for this, maybe I will prove that Amah did not have the opportunity to murder the earlier victims in Waterloo. But searching through my paperwork proves fruitless. Although I have travel documents in my own name, any tickets or rooms that Amah had occupied have been left anonymous.

  I sink down onto my desk chair. I can’t think of any other way to prove Amah was at home or abroad on the nights of the murders.

  Is Amah in a cell at this very moment? Is she cold, thirsty? I pluck at my lip again until it hurts. Is she scared? That would be almost worse than anything else.

  And is Amah allowed to keep her veil lowered, hiding her dark features? It’s never been more evident to me why Amah likes to be invisible to the world of London, and that it is necessarily so.

  My fingers clasp the familiar shape of the snuff bottle again. If only I could have a sniff. But as Taff had said, being delirious on the sofa is of no help to Amah. I take a cigarette from my purse and light it, drawing the smoke deep down into my chest. I flick the ash into the grate and draw in another, quick breath of smoke. Suddenly I know exactly what I’ll have to do, and I have to stop wasting time wallowing around. I can’t prove Amah’s not the killer, therefore I’ll have to prove that someone else is.

  I think for a few more minutes, until the red tip of the cigarette burns my fingers. I toss its remnants into the fireplace. Pulling writing paper to me, I scrawl a note to Sir Thomas telling him the horrific news. My pen hovers above the paper, as I quell a surge of shame. Eleanor was in my care, and I’d let her down.

  I call for Bundle and hand him the letter to send.

  “Any word from Taff?” I ask. “Is he back yet with the carriage?”

  “No, Mrs Chancey. No, I have heard nothing from him and the carriage has not yet returned. Shall I find you a cab?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  I fold Eleanor’s blue dress into a large hatbox and, grabbing a parasol, shawl and my reticule I walk briskly out to the waiting cab. I direct the driver to take me to the hospital in Waterloo and, once there, bid him wait for me. I’m not sure if Bill is still at the morgue or back at the police station, but I don’t want to miss him.

  The undertaker’s coach is still parked outside the building, and I peer gingerly down the morgue’s sterile corridor, hoping I won’t encounter the girls’ bodies again. I catch sight of Mrs Dawkins’ familiar iron-grey curls and call out to her from the doorway.

  The cleaner bustles over. “Mrs Chancey. Such a terrible business. Terrible.” She folds her arms and shakes her head. “Terrible, it is. I’m sorry for your news.”

  “Yes, yes, it is terrible. Thank you.” I offer the hat box to the older woman. “Mrs Dawkins, do you think you could make sure Eleanor Carter is dressed in this gown? I believe she admired it so.”

  “Of course, my dear. Of course.” She pats my arm. “I’ll make sure it’s done, even if I have to do it myself.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate that. You haven’t seen Sgt Chapman have you?”

  Mrs Dawkins looks over her shoulder. “He’s still in the back room with Mr Pike and those young ‘uns.” She shakes her head again, sadly. “He’s worked so hard on this matter. I’ve never met such a diligent young man.”

  “Do you think I could have a word with him?”

  “I’ll go check for you.”

  I only wait a couple of minutes before Bill strides towards me. He beckons me outside, and we stand on the kerb by a coffee stand.

  “What is it, Heloise?” he asks. He looks less exhausted than he had earlier that morning, and I sense a tremor of impatience in him. His pale eyes are especially cool. “The inspector released Henry from our custody a little while ago.”

  “I don’t care about him. What of my maid?”

  “I’m sorry, I have no news of her.” He buys us each a cup of coffee. “Have you come with proof of her whereabouts on the nights of the murders?”

  “No. No, unfortunately I could not find anything.” I watc
h his eyebrows lift, as if he expects as much. I tamp down a frustrated desire to regale him with the unfairness of a maid’s – a foreign maid’s – lot. “But I have remembered two things that I need to discuss with you.” I sip the tepid coffee which leaves a sour taste on my tongue. I throw the remaining coffee into the gutter and return the cup to the stallholder. “But first, tell me, did you take Dr Mordaunt’s diary from my room in Frazier Street?”

  He shakes his head. “No. I can’t remember seeing it, as a matter of fact.” He pulls his pocket watch out and glances at it. “I only have a moment, Heloise.”

  “What of Dr Blain?” I say, quickly, catching hold of his sleeve. “I’ve not told you of his visit to us yesterday. He seemed very taken with Eleanor, but in a very odd way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I can’t tell him of my conversation with Blain the night before at the opera without compromising my own story, so I prevaricate. I remember Blain’s actual words, though, and turn them to my use. “I almost think he was obsessed with the girl. Almost as if he would rather see her die than not be with him. He said as much.” I realise, if the sergeant were to interview the doctor, Blain will inform him of my true character, but what is that in comparison to Amah’s safety? He would have to know sooner or later, anyway, if he is to visit me in Mayfair. But that test is for another time.

  His expression hardens as he watches me. “You really do consider yourself the little detective, don’t you? But you must remember that I am the real detective. I’ll have you know that I have already thought of our Dr Blain and questioned him not an hour past.”

  Ah. Now I see. Finally I can peer through those pale eyes into his mind. For I’ve seen this disdain before. This abhorrence that tightens the muscles around the mouth. The sense of betrayal that hums behind each word.

  “And?”

  “And he spent the whole evening at his aunt’s house last night. Escorted her to the opera, I believe.”

  So, he won’t reveal what he now knows of me. I wonder if that is for my benefit or for his own. I join in the game even as my chest burns with disappointment. “But he could have sneaked out from there, surely? In fact, it’d be a good cover for his story if it was thought he was at his aunt’s house rather than in his own home near here, alone.”

  “Heloise, she lives in Marylebone. It would take him an age to get to Waterloo. He’s hardly going to slip out in the middle of the night, do his dastardly deeds, and return there again.”

  “But that’s exactly what you think Amah did,” I argue.

  He just shakes his head. “What was the other thing you wanted to discuss with me? I really must be getting back.”

  He turns from me. No fare-well, no crooked smile. I pull my shoulders back, bite down on my jaw. I have to keep my mind on Amah. And my other idea is almost more far-fetched than the one featuring Blain. But I’ll bloody well investigate it on my own..

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Hopping down from the cab I pay the driver and watch as the carriage’s large wheels rumble away. I pause for a moment in the middle of the road, and tap my foot against a cobblestone, thinking. I stare ahead at the pine-green door. My heart’s racing and I take two deep breaths. I’ve wanted this confrontation for years – for so many years – but I shake my head abruptly. That is not why I’m here. I’ve come here on a new mission. A mission to find out who killed Eleanor and the other women.

  The black, wrought iron gate creaks noisily as I push it open. I close it with a decisive clang, and march into Dr Mordaunt’s office before my resolve flags. The bell above the doorway tinkles and the doctor’s oily assistant looks up from his work.

  “I’d like to see Dr Mordaunt please,” I say, my voice haughty.

  “Do you have an appointment, madam?” asks the assistant, his voice just as haughty.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I will see when he is free.” The assistant makes a great show of perusing his ledger.

  I roll my eyes at his greasy pate. The door to the surgery is open, the room empty. But the doctor’s office door’s shut and I can’t hear any murmurs or movement coming from in there.

  I really want to search his office again. I need to find out if the notebook is back in his possession. If the diary is back in its hiding spot, then I can be sure that it was Mordaunt who’d taken it. Who else would have wanted to steal the diary? I can’t think of anyone else. And I know that if he’d stolen back the diary, it also meant he’d murdered the girls.

  But what if he’s disposed of the notebook? What if he’d taken it home, not to his surgery?

  Then I’ll have to follow him. I’ll have to ransack his home, and hope against hope that he hasn’t destroyed it. I’ll have to keep searching for clues against the man so that I can free Amah.

  “I am afraid he was called away to a patient for the rest of the day,” says the assistant. The sincerity of his tone is unconvincing. “He will not be returning here until tomorrow morning.”

  “That is a pity.” I pull a face of disappointment. “I will return another time.”

  “You don’t want to make an appointment?”

  “I will take my chances, thank you.”

  Returning to the cul-de-sac, I make my way to the next corner. I wait by the same fence I’d stood by last time, but after a short while I feel conspicuous. The street’s busy and men ogle me as they pass. Keeping a watch on the mouth of the cul-de-sac, I stroll along the road, returning when I judge it too far to see when the assistant makes his way home. This I continue with for an hour and a half, stopping only to drink a ginger-beer and avoid the cold drizzle that dogs my surveillance. Sighing with the tedium, I’ve almost come to the stage of making excuses for myself to leave, when the assistant walks towards me from the doctor’s street. I duck behind a water-cart, pretending to scrape mud from my soaked shoes to keep my head averted until he passes by. I hesitate until he walks on down the street and turns left near the cross-roads.

  Stepping swiftly across to the doctor’s street my pace drops to a stroll when I notice a young mother and her baby standing upon a neighbouring doorstep watching me curiously. Smiling sweetly, I greet them, and continue to amble to the end of the cul-de-sac. I wonder what the hell I’m to do when, luckily, the woman re-enters her narrow abode.

  I go to work on the doctor’s front door lock and enter as easily as I had the time before. Tiptoeing into his office, I close the door and lean my back against it. I must be very careful. If I’m to find the diary and the doctor suspects as much, he will move or destroy it. It’s imperative that if I find it, the diary remains in the same place so that once I’ve informed the police, they can return and discover it for themselves. Surely, once I explain the timing of its disappearance from the Waterloo house to Bill, he too will see that Dr Mordaunt must have killed the girls.

  I rifle through the drawers of his desk, careful to replace objects exactly where they are. I glance over the books on his bookshelf and flip through the papers in his filing cabinet but cannot find the diary.

  This time, being so focused on my investigation, I don’t hear the bell’s tinkle from above the entrance.

  Dr Mordaunt swings the office door open. He holds a half-empty bottle of whisky to his mouth. Liquid dribbles from his bottom lip when he sees me.

  I’m startled, but only for a moment. My dislike for him is so great I can’t prevent a sneer from lifting my lip.

  “A bit early in the day for a doctor to drink, isn’t it?” I ask. “Although I do recall that you were at your most active in the middle of the night.”

  “What the hell do you want?” He sets the bottle down on the desk.

  I’m by the filing cabinet and the doctor’s between me and the door. I know there’ll be no fudging my way out this time. My hand snakes down into my reticule.

  “I came here to discuss your diary.” I note with satisfaction how his hard eyes widen. “You know – a black, leather notebook. Red ribbon.”

  “So you t
ook it, you little bitch.” He lurches towards me, his wide hands stretched towards my neck.

  I yank out my handgun and level it at his chest. He halts and stares at it for a few moments then gives a derisive snort. He slumps down at his desk and takes a mouthful of his whisky.

  “Well?” he says, eventually. “What do you want to discuss?”

  “I want to know where the diary is.”

  “What do you mean? I thought you had it,” he says, looking up at me.

  “I did have it. But it went missing last night and I think you took it.”

  “How the hell was I supposed to know where you were with my diary? I don’t even know who you damn well are,” he shouts. “Yes, I guessed it was you who took it after I caught you in here last time, but I certainly didn’t know how to trace you. In fact, I’ve been waiting for your return.” He laughs humourlessly, and takes another swig from his bottle. “Waiting. Waiting.” He turns a nasty face to me. “And here you are, as expected.”

  I lean against the hard edge of the cabinet, my gun still trained on him.

  “What do you mean you were waiting for me to return?”

  “Well, I assume you read the thing.”

  “I glanced through it enough to see it held detailed records of your… more prohibited activities.”

  He gulps from his bottle. “And now you’ve lost the notebook too. You’ve lost your nice little money-earner. Well I’m not sorry for it.”

  “Money-earner?” It takes me a moment to realise what he means. “I wasn’t going to blackmail you with it. Why would I try to extort money from you?”

  “Well, what the hell did you take it for?” He pounds the desk with the flat of his hand. “What the bloody hell did you take it for?”

  “I wanted to know what you were up to.” I manage to keep my voice and gun steady.

  “And what did the diary tell you?”

  “It told me you were still doing your special favours for the women in the area.”